As reported by the BBC, the family of Terence Stamp has confirmed that the actor died on Sunday morning at the age of 87. In Stamp’s long and illustrious career, the actor had some notable videogame performances, including the Prophet of Truth in Halo, and Mankar Camoran in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion.
Stamp was born to a working class London family in 1938, and first rose to popularity in the 1960s, once even being considered to replace Sean Connery as James Bond. Stamp is perhaps best known today for the second act of his career, where he made a mark as a versatile character actor. Stamp played General Zod opposite Christopher Reeve in the first two Superman movies in 1978 and 1980.
Stamp had a small number of videogame appearances in his career, most notably in Halo 3 and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Stamp was one of a number of famous actors who lent their voices to Oblivion, including Sir Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, and Lynda Carter. Stamp’s performance as Mankar Camoran can once again be heard in Virtuous’ remaster of Oblivion, as well as the upcoming Skyblivion mod remake.
In the documentary, The Making of Oblivion, Stamp can be seen working in the booth, delivering some of his lines as Camoran and receiving direction from longtime Elder Scrolls lead, Todd Howard. Though Stamp says in the documentary that he had only gotten the FedEx of the script the night before recording and that he was less familiar with this “area of performance,” his delivery of Camoran remains a highlight of the game.
“Superman 1 and 2, kinda my formative years, when I was six or seven. Terence Stamp is General Zod, and he has a great line in Superman 2, where he gets Superman to kneel,” Howard explained in the documentary. “‘Son of Jor-El, kneel before Zod!’ And my brother would always do that but change ‘Zod’ to ‘Todd.’ Just over the years, one of those things.”
Naturally, in-between recording Cameron’s commanding and esoteric monologues to the Mythic Dawn cult, Stamp graciously delivered a menacing “Kneel before Todd!” For Howard and his brother.
Stamp was reportedly in talks to reprise his role as transgender drag queen Bernadette Bassenger in a distant sequel to the 1994 film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. According to IMDB, his final role will remain an appearance in Edgar Wright’s 2021 film, Last Night in Soho.
